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Empty Bowl

Today is Friday.  I got up at 6 this morning to cycle down to Boylston Street to photograph the improvised memorial for Marathon victims, a trip I’d managed to postpone for three days, afraid of what I’d feel once I got there. Flowers and poems and marathon medals.  A visual to  accompany an explanation about why The Garum Factory isn’t running our usual format.

Instead, I learn that a young MIT policeman is dead, as is one of the bombing suspects, and the city is in lockdown while scores of police attempt to locate the second bomber.

By the time you read this, it may be all over.  But regardless of where we are in this narrative, I’d like to devote a moment to its beginning, last Monday.

POLENTA WITH PANCETTA, SHAVED ASPARAGUS AND AGED GOUDA

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Polenta with Pancetta, Asparagus and Shaved Gouda-25

Last week Jody and I were treated to a delicious dish of broiled polenta with mushrooms at the home of friends and we immediately began thinking about a spring variation. Our first impulse, topping it with chicory and fava beans, didn’t work out because fresh favas – or a good substitute – aren’t in stores yet. What is available now is asparagus – and pancetta, and for a new wrinkle on the cheese, Aged Gouda.

A patio of one’s own – Grilled Spring Onions with Romesco

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Grilled Spring Onions with Romesco TGF-1

Here’s the scene: working-class neighborhood, first house, first back yard, first patio.  Radical move against the local pave-the-yard-build-a-grape-arbor esthetic.  We christened the patio’s finish by inviting neighbors Pam and Chris to join us for Grilled Spring Onions with Romesco.  At the time, almost two decades ago, I’d heard of Romesco, the thick Catalan sauce based on roasted red peppers and nuts, but not grilled spring onions, which my wife assured me was a big deal in Barcelona.  She was right.  The Calçotada is a month-long Barcelonan lovefest to calçots, spring onions, which are then grilled and slathered with Romesco.  Imagine a sloppy Falstaffian bender lasting most of April, involving untold quantities of red wine and masses of fragrant grilled onions wrapped in newspapers or served in inverted clay roofing tiles and eaten with your hands.  Uh-huh, who isn’t down for that?

Flash in the Pan – Pork Scaloppine with Prosciutto, Capers and Sage

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Pork Scaloppine with Prosciutto, Capers and Balsamic Vinegar TGF-1

Tackling your first scaloppine recipe is a bit like being handed the car keys for your first night driving solo, an event occasioning braggadocio tempered by  a gruff fatherly warning, Don’t screw this up.  Your skills are on display.  Since the dish is cooked just a few minutes before eating, it necessarily involves a bit of brinksmanship.  If it doesn’t work, well, there’s always pizzaphone.  The thing is, despite appearances there’s not much chance of that happening.  The risk is illusory.  This week’s Pork Scaloppine with Prosciutto, Capers and Sage is guaranteed to have you home by midnight.  Plus, you’re going to look really good.

Coconut, Banana and Lime Bread Pudding – steamed in the pressure cooker

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Coconut Banana Lime Bread Pudding TGF-1

Although our trip to Haiti wasn’t about food, we had hoped to reflect some Haitian flavors in this week’s post.  Plantains, for example, are ubiquitous.  You can’t drive for ten minutes in the Central Plateau without passing fields of what look like bananas that fell asleep downstream from the nuclear power plant and woke up with anger management issues and a family resemblance to the Hulk.  Baskets piled high with green behemoths are a common feature at every market.  At some point we’ll do a piece on green plantains, which we ate every day, but we reserved this last post in our current series on pressure cooking for dessert–and green plantains have no place in a dessert.* 

Ergo, Steamed Coconut, Banana and Lime Bread Pudding.   

HAITI

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[caption id="attachment_5422" align="aligncenter" width="800"]Cange woman. Cange woman.[/caption]

In February Jody and I and our two children Roxanne and Oliver, along with an old friend and great travelling companion, Bette Ann Harris, spent five days in Haiti.  Jody, who visited last year, wanted to check out Partners in Health’s new hospital at Mirebalais as well as see a bit of Haiti beyond the medical facilities.  BA, professor emerita of physical therapy at Massachusetts General Hospitals’s Institute of Health Professions, wanted to see the physical therapy program in action she designed with Andree LeRoy, PIH’s director of physical rehabilitation in Haiti.  Oliver, Roxanne and I were along to have our eyes opened.

Oliver’s Chicken Stew, in a pressure cooker

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Oliver's Chicken Stew - 119 - 1

After this week you might be forgiven for thinking that we’ve changed our name to Mastering the Art of French Carroting, or perhaps Babette’s Carrot.*  The prominence of carrots in the last three posts  was pure happenstance, answers to the question: What do we like to cook in the pressure cooker?  Turns out carrots figure in a lot of what we like, including this week’s recipe, Oliver’s Chicken Stew.

Pressure Cooker Risotto with Kale Pesto

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Risotto with Kale Pesto-TGF-20

Something discordant this way comes.  It happens in every kitchen, if you cook together long enough.  Jody and I did a Dagwood and Blondie over today’s post, Risotto with Kale Pesto, made in a pressure cooker.  My willingness to fudge things a bit for a weeknight dinner versus the cruel exactitude of a restaurant chef.   As Jody not so delicately summed up our contretemps: “You’re the photographer. [Ouch!]  I’m the chef, and my reputation is on the line.”  Guess who got the broom in the back of the head? 

Lamb Stew with Chickpeas, Preserved Lemon and Saffron

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Pressure Cooker Lamb Stew with Chickpeas, Preservred Lemon and Saffron-1

What would winter be without snow?  (The Bahamas, that’s what.)  Winter with snow is what made Currier and Ives famous, what gives New Englanders character, and what causes some people to regard year-round Maine residents as a bit dotty.  I, for one, was happy to see the snow a couple of weeks ago.  I want at least one weekend when walking down the sidewalk in front of my house resembles McMurdo Station, when everyone exercises the exquisite protocols that dictate who first steps aside, and who passes.  This week’s recipe is what all of us hope to find when we come inside from shoveling,  a dish that fills the air with aromas as good as a back rub,  Lamb Stew with Chick Peas, Preserved Lemon and Saffron.

Fennel-Carrot Soup with Ginger

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Fennel-Carrot Soup with Ginger-1

After the complexities of the Blue Zone, we thought some simple pressure-cooker* recipes would make a welcome change of pace.  Fennel-Carrot Soup with Ginger is the first of 4 or 5 PC posts (vote with your comments!).   If you don’t own a pressure cooker, no worries, all of the recipes work the old-fashioned way; they just take a little longer.